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[Portraits of actors, often playing roles] – Vintage Wall Art

[Portraits of actors, often playing roles], [between 1860 and 1866 (seal date: 1860.7)] — historic print
[Portraits of actors, often playing roles], [between 1860 and 1866 (seal date: 1860.7)]. Historic print from the Japanese Prints collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

A window into the past: [Portraits of actors, often playing roles], preserved in this historic print. Sourced directly from the Library of Congress, it represents an authentic piece of documented history.

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[Portraits of actors, often playing roles]

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Twenty ōban sheets mounted together on a scroll set this group apart from single actor portraits, and the subject is the kabuki actor Nakamura Shikan (1831–1899), shown in a range of roles. Three artists made the sheets in the early 1860s: Utagawa Toyokuni (also known as Kunisada), Toyohara Kunichika, and Utagawa Kuniaki, and one sheet remains unattributed. The brocade-style nishiki-e printing, with its layered colors, was the standard for actor portraits of the period, and the continuous scroll format suggests the set was meant to be viewed as a sequence that follows the performer's repertoire.

Created / published[between 1860 and 1866 (seal date: 1860.7)]
Medium20 prints (mounted on scroll) : woodcut, color.
Genreorganized by the Library of Congress, 2001.
NotesTitle and other information based on entry in exhibition catalog. Artists include Utagawa Toyokuni (also known as Utagawa Kunisada) (sheets 8-10, 14-16, 20); Toyohara Kunichika (sheets 1, 2, 4, 5, 11-13, 17-19); and Utagawa Kuniaki (sheets 3, 6). Artist for sheet 7 not yet identified. Nishike-e (brocade) print. Ōban size. Forms part of: Japanese prints and drawings (Library of Congress). Four sheets (7, 9, 13, and 20) Published in: The Floating world of Ukiyo-e ... / essays by Sandy Kita .... New York ..., 2001, no. 109, pp. 174-75. Exhibited: The Floating world of Ukiyo-e: shadows
SubjectsShikan, Nakamura,--1831-1899. Actors--Japanese--1850-1870.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan4,535 × 3,669 px · prints to 15 × 12 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-222072

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